Anyway to consolidate miles across different programs?
 

Hi there

Am a newbie to the site so apologies if this has been asked before, or if indeed its a stupid question!

I have a considerable number of miles accrued with a variety of carriers, which are all up for expiration shortly, and am probably unable to make use of them...

Is there any way I can consolidate all the miles onto one programme (ie AirMiles here in the UK)... the airlines I have points with are: Qantas, American, Thai and Air Canada.... If not - is there any way these can be donated to some kind of charitable organisation to prevent them going to waste?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated
Many thanks
S

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Very few airline programs allow outbound transfers. American Airlines is one which does, details here...

http://www.aa.com/content/AAdvantage...eemMiles.jhtml

To research other possibilities, start here...

http://webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/

Note that many programs allow you to retain miles with any type of account activity every N months. Your miles may not expire if you can generate any mileage earning transaction, such as a car rental, hotel stay, floral purchase or other online shopping transaction credited to the program. You will need to research each program's individual rules and partnerships.

Going forward, note that Qantas and American are both members of the OneWorld Alliance. Likewise, Air Canada and Thai both belong to Star Alliance. In general one can fly on any carrier and credit all flights to a single carrier in the same alliance. This means you would not need to accumulate miles in a separate account for each carrier that you happen to fly.

Hi,

Have a look at POINTS.COM

Regards

Very, very, very poor exchange rates. Not recommended at all unless you want to lose most of your miles in the transfer process.

Points.com or use Hilton to transfer to and from

Since only 2 of the 4 the OP listed that participates in Points.com there probably isn't much point. Webflyer has a calculator for things like Hilton exchange but that won't help with most of these programs anyway.

Some of them do allow charity donations - just look up the programs own website.

QF allows redemption for rental car discounts for as little as 250 miles so that may be an option if you want to burn them.

AA allows redemption for magazines for 600 miles and has other redemption partners as well.

With 4 programs, it won't be hard to look at the options of each one. There is no way of merging them all into one account though.

If you have really small amounts then there may be no point in just not letting them expire.

Out of interest, what is your approx. balance in each account? That would let us suggest usage options more easily.

If you are in the UK then your options are going to be limited I am afraid.